Taking the Local out of Local Government

After extensive consultation, the Royal Commission on Local Government has made its recommendations on how local government can best serve Auckland over the next 50 to 100 years. The Government took this report and in less than a fortnight they announced a proposal for Auckland becoming a Super City.

There is no doubt Auckland needs a change to our regional governance structure to manage the environmental, economic, social and political challenges we all face over the next 100 years. Our current regional governance is not well equipped to effectively manage these issues. The way we manage regional infrastructure and provide regional services - in particular Transport, Water and our Regional Assets - is complex, confusing, and not as effective as it could be.

However, Auckland’s local governance is strong with 7 Mayors, 109 Councillors, and 145 Community Board members. For many years Auckland’s seven Councils have provided fair and effective local representation. They have been able to respond to local issues in our communities by setting rates, implementing projects and setting service levels.

The government is proposing to amalgamate all seven Councils and establish 20-30 local boards to try and address local issues.

It is clear that the proposed Super City will provide the means to make decisive regional decisions and it will be beneficially for some local services to be regionalised (such as Libraries and the Zoo). But Aucklanders will loose what we have now which is fair and effective local implementation.

The Government’s announcement to establish 20-30 local boards across the Auckland region may provide the public with a forum to identify local issues. However, if local boards are to be truly fair and effective they need a mechanism to implement their own decisions, just like our existing Councils, and they need a process to escalate issues to the Auckland Council. Without giving these boards real power we will not have local representation that works.

We run the long term risk of resources being allocated away from communities, communities loosing the ability to implement projects, and communities becoming alienated from decisions.

Make sure you’re voice is heard. I’m encouraging everyone to talk about the issues of a Super City. Email your comments to the Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide hide@parliament.govt.nz

ENDS

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